Sanctions, markets and a hiker in Val di Fassa: the afternoon updates three fronts

This morning’s lead story recounted the chaos surrounding an alleged energy truce between Russia and Ukraine attributed to Trump, with Zelensky saying he had not been informed. The afternoon adds a verifiable fact: on October 16 Trump signed an executive order suspending tariffs and certain sanctions provided for under the Graham Act against Russia and Iran. It is a unilateral move from which Brussels immediately distances itself — and here coverage expands to Europe, with analysis on the European Council: Ursula von der Leyen has ruled out lifting EU sanctions until Russia ends the war, while leaders expressed regret precisely over the American decision on Russian diesel. Two different readings of the same war, from two sides of the Atlantic: this morning’s assessment, which pointed to confusion among allies, holds up and is further refined.

Also from Brussels comes a second update, on a separate matter: the EU’s green light for Italy’s mechanism against energy price hikes, inspired by the Spanish model, with an expected 25% cut in costs for households and businesses and funding borne solely by beneficiaries.

In Economy and Markets, the afternoon closes out the day on Wall Street: the worst week since June for the S&P 500 (-1.1%) and the Nasdaq (-2.1%), more contained for the Dow Jones (-0.3%), with selling concentrated on artificial intelligence-related stocks.

In Health, a study in Nature Medicine looks at the effects of GLP-1 therapy delivered via digital platform on more than 8,000 women in the United Kingdom: real-world data, not a randomized trial, with six-month results comparable to those of clinical studies. In Tech & AI, more than 400 scientists — including Hinton and Bengio — are calling for the most dangerous models to be isolated from the internet before any potential connection.

In Italy, a news item unrelated to the previous updates is added: the death of a 36-year-old hiker in Val di Fassa, on Saturday morning. The news currently comes from a single source, L’Adige, and the circumstances remain to be established.

Cinema & Entertainment, Culture, Sport remain as published this morning: a planned piece on tennis (Zverev in Shanghai) has not been added, and the Sport section remains covered by this morning’s article. This is today’s final edition; the next one comes out tomorrow morning at 6:30.